Life Goes On

Well, I had great intentions of blogging once a week, all fall. As usual I was not consistent and did not follow through. I planned to blog about my efforts of getting healthy, and staying accountable to myself. I was about as inconsistent in my blogging as I was in my diet. However, I did still make some changes.

I have gone through bouts of being pop free but in the end, I am having at least a little pop nearly every day. I have definitely lowered the portions of food that I eat. My workouts have not been good at all. Between taking care of family issues, my own health matters, sick children, and bad weather, I just have not been able to make it to the gym on a regular basis. As I write this, it has been over a month since I have made it to the gym. However, I have been able to do some workouts at home, whether it be shoveling snow, doing Wii Dance, or just simply using free weights and calisthenics.

The biggest change over the last few months, has not been on the scale or in my measurements. It has been in my meat consumption. In an effort to scare me from eating chemical filled foods, I started watching food documentaries. Some of these shows were so disgusting that it made me completely stop eating meat. Well, mostly stop eating meat. I went three weeks without meat. After that, I had a few bites of meat once a week, then went up to a couple times a week, and eventually started using meat more as a garnish to my meals than a main focal point. On special occasion, I have been known to have a steak while out to dinner, but that is a rare occasion.

In all of this I made a huge discovery. I have struggled with severe headaches/migraines my entire life. We never knew what caused them, it was just something I always had, and learned to deal with it. When I started adding meat back into my diet, I noticed something quite eye opening. My headaches only came when I ate pork. Each and every single time, even if I only had a bite or two of pork. This was quite eye opening, because my daughter is allergic to pork, amongst many other foods. Though her reaction is hives, I am almost astounded that I did not even begin to wonder if my headaches were really a food allergy. So now that I know I am allergic to pork, it has been taken out of my diet.

Though this fall and winter were a big speed bump on my journey to get healthy, I am positive that this spring I will get back on the road, figuratively and literally. I added up last years miles, and I biked roughly 200 miles from late April-early November. This year, I hope to do at least 500 miles. Though that sounds like a high goal, I feel that it is 100% reachable.

Last year I lost 28 pounds. While it is not what I had hoped to lose, it isn't really something to be ashamed of. It is still a great number and something to be proud of! I hope that this year I can lose at least that amount again, if not more!

And so, life goes on...This life will continue to change. I will continue to change. Since I am obviously not good at keeping up with a blog when I tell everyone I will keep up with it, I am just gonna stop telling everyone I will keep up with it. I do hope to keep up with it though. I am going to stop thinking of it as a way to update family and friends, and more of a way to keep track of my changes on a day to day basis. When I think of it as updating friends and family, I tend to be long winded. I know, I know, that's just my personality and I will never stop being that way...However, I wonder if I think of it as it being more for myself then maybe I will feel more like I can just sit down and type for 5 minutes instead of an hour. So, here is my plan: I will write. If you want to keep up with what is going on, then you will have to make the effort to follow me. This will probably be the last post that I link to on Facebook for quite awhile.